Zeppelin University Yearbook 2015

Understanding Inequality:Social Costs and Benefits

Edited byAmanda Machin – Nico Stehr

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Contents

Introduction

Inequality in Modern Societies: Causes, Consequences and Challenges5

Amanda Machin and Nico Stehr

Section One: Capitalism and Inequality

Section Introduction 44

1. Welfare states and their inequality as a result of cultural differences instead of varieties of capitalism

45Martin Schröder

2. Bildung- und Genderstruktur im Crowdinvesting: Eine vertane Chance 74

Jarko Fidrmuc and Adrian Louis

3. Trust, Government and Social Equity 84

Scott McNall

4. Slouching Toward Inequality 110Charles Lemert

Section Two: Culture and Inequality

Section Introduction122

5. Inclusion and Exclusion in the Cosmopolis 125Anil Jain

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6. You May Kiss the Groom: Americans’ Attitudes Toward Same-Sex Marriage138

Patricia A. Gwartney and Daniel S. Schwartz

7. Inklusion, revisited164

Maren Lehmann

8. Wherein Lies the Value of Equality in a World Without ‘Natural Equality’? 188

Steve Fuller

9. Des Guten zuviel – Ungleichheit durch das Mehr-als-Nötige207

Joachin Landkammer

Section Three: Governing and Inequality

Section Introduction245

10. Political Inequality: Origins, Consequences, and Ways Ahead247

Jennifer Shore

11. Economically based inequalities in political representation: Where do they comefrom? 266

Jan Rossett

12. Mehr Bildung, größere Ungleichheit: Ein Dilemma der Aktivierungspolitik285

Richard Münch

13. What Drives Elite-Challenging Behaviours?302

Reza Nakhaie

14. Warum mehr Armut in Deutschland?328

Barbara Lange, Andreas Haupt, Gerd Nollmann und Professor HermannStrasser

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Section Four: Media and Inequality

Section Introduction358

15. Konsonant oder interessengeleitet? Eine Frame-Analyse zur Berichterstattungüber die Vermögensteuer im Wahljahr 2013

360Dennis Lichtenstein, Markus Rhomberg and Michaela Böhme

16. Verantworten Fernsehproduzenten soziale Ungleichheit? Zur KritischenTheorie der Fernsehproduktion 384Martin Herbers

Section Five: Global and Local Inequality

Section Introduction408

17. Migrants as an Indicator of Global and Local Inequality: The Case of AfricanRefugees 410Heribert Adam

18. Citizenship and Inequality in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Contours and424

Collective ResponsesCarin Runciman

19. The Elite in the City: Spaces and Structures of Inequality in Johannesburg447

Federica Duca

Contributor Biographies462

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Index468

5

Introduction

Inequality in Modern Societies: Causes, Consequences and

Challenges

Amanda Machin and Nico Stehr

The theme of inequality has an unequalled prominence in social

science. The discovery of the difference between social inequality

and natural inequality underpinned the very emergence of the social

and cultural sciences in the 18th century, and the on-going

intellectual effort to understand inequality remains at the heart

of many of its projects. Indeed, the possibility of drawing a

fixed line between naturally ineradicable differences and socially

adjustable ones is growing increasingly suspect, in a world in

which developments of medical science and bio-technology challenge

what was previously considered as a matter of life’s lottery. This

issue is rightly gaining attention as the ethical and

philosophical analyses of these developments attempt to keep pace

with them (cf. Fuller, this volume).

In the twentieth century, the term “social inequality” fell out of

use to be replaced by the term “social stratification”. Over the

last couple of decades, however, the concept of social inequality

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has re-assumed its previous dominance. Evidence attests to the

pronounced increase of inequality on national and global levels;

wealth circulates into the hands of a tiny cosmopolitan elite

while a large number of people around the world remain

impoverished (Rehbein, 2015: 149). Not only is there sharpening

inequality in income but the world and its societies are unequal

in many additional dimensions: wealth (cf. Blair and Wallman,

2001; Stiglitz, 2015), health (Lynch, Smith, Kaplan and House,

2000), life expectancy (Wilson and Daly, 1997), infant mortality

(Antonowsky and Bernstein, 1977), political participation

(Armingeon and Schädel, 2015), capabilities (Sen, 1992), education

(e.g. Neckermann and Torche, 2014).

The robustness and interconnectedness of the new forms of

inequality demand attention. Not only is inequality on the rise,

but research on inequality is burgeoning too. Alongside economic

analysis, sociological and political approaches have revealed the

complexity of inequality and its various manifestations: gender,

sex, race, disability have joined class as categories, causes and

effects of inequality. Growing recognition of the intersection of

different types of inequality with each other and with educational

opportunities and environmental circumstance has made it difficult

to study any particular factor in isolation or to apply a

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simplistic model of stratification or hierarchy. Economic

inequality correlates with political inequality and this can

aggravate inequality in terms of social status, access to

education, environmental goods, protection from health hazards and

citizenship rights. It is not possible to discern valid policies

for tackling sharpening inequality before probing its complex

mechanisms and manifestations.

This anthology has attempted to collate a representative set of

articles on the broad topic of inequality and thus hopes both to

highlight some of the interesting and important discussions on the

topic and to contribute to them. Our introduction intends to

provide a contextual background by giving an overview of some of

the major lines of interest that are found in the vast literature

on inequality both present and past: (1) the origins and nature of

inequality; (2) the empirical evidence of inequality; (3) the social

and political consequences of inequality; (4) emerging patterns of

inequality.

On the origins and the nature of inequality

Nicht der natürliche Unterschied der physischen und chemischenBodenqualitäten oder unterschiedliche Wirtschaftsbegabungverschiedener Rassen, sondern das geschichtlich begründetewirtschaftliche Milieu ist bestimmend für die verschiedenenErgebnisse der bäuerlichen Landwirtschaft.Max Weber, [1904] 1952: 445-446

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Of all the vulgar modes of escaping from the consideration of theeffect of social and moral influences on the human mind, the mostvulgar is that of attributing the diversities of conduct and characterto inherent natural differences.John Stuart Mill, 1848: 379

What is the nature of inequality? Are inequalities natural? If

inequalities are rooted in immutable biological fact, then it

might be argued that social hierarchy reflects nothing but a

natural (or divine) order. These arguments appear with regards to

race and gender inequalities, which are explained as genetic,

anatomical or hormonal differences. For example, Richard

Herrnstein and Charles Murray (1994) argued that major social

inequalities in the United States among ethnic groups can be

accounted for by differences in intelligence. Herrnstein and

Murray were confident that innate intelligence is the major

determinant of social and economic success. They conclude, that

trying to eradicate inequality with artificially manufactured

outcomes has led to disaster. This conclusion of course has been

highly contested (cf. Fischer et al. 2007; Koreman and Winship,

2000).

If social inequalities were natural, social inequality research

would be obsolete and any political demand to change social order

would be rendered pointless. But biology is not fate. It is this

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recognition that was crucial for the very emergence of social

science. Recognition of the role of social influences, vis-à-

vis natural origins, in understanding the diversity that is evidence

in any society demanded a focus upon society itself. The origins

of social theory in general (cf. Giddens, 1976) are therefore

bound up with the social scientific understanding of social

inequality. As we will investigate, the social sciences have

proceeded to produce a diverse body of tools to conceptualize,

observe and challenge inequality.

The capital theory of inequality

It is Jean Jacques Rousseau perhaps more than other thinker who

offers the crucial point of departure in understanding the

difference between natural and social differences (cf. Dahrendorf,

1968; Hirschman, 1982; Gissis, 2002; Berger, 2004). In an essay

devoted to the topic “The origins of inequality among men and

whether it is legitimated by natural law” he advanced the

fundamental point, that it does not make much sense…

…To investigate whether there might not be an essential connectionbetween the two inequalities (the natural and the social). For it wouldmean that we must ask whether the rulers are necessarily worthmore than the ruled, and whether strength of body and mind,wisdom, and virtue are always found in the same individuals, andfound, moreover, in direct relations to their power or wealth; aequation that slaves who think they are being overheard by their

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masters may find useful to discuss, but that has no meaning forreasonable and free men in search of the truth(Rousseau, [1754] 1913: 207).

Since social inequality cannot be deduced from natural inequality,

Rousseau suggests that it arose as the result of emergence of

private property. Rousseau explains the process that brings about

and legitimizes social inequality in one simple sentence: “the

first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, to whom it

occurred to say ‘this is mine’, and found a people sufficiently simple

to believe him, was the real founder of civil society.” (Note that

the uncloaking of social inequality in this statement is

accompanied by its exclusion of women.) Rousseau’s emphasis upon

the role of property relations in conditioning the social

structure has been reaffirmed by various prominent thinkers,

including David Hume, Adam Smith, Georg Hegel and, of course, Karl

Marx. We will call this the capital theory of social inequality.

For Marx, the inequality caused and justified through capitalist

relations of production was an inevitable stage in the

teleological progress towards an equal social order. Capitalism

involved the concentration of property in a small number of hands

and the enslavement of the working class (Marx and Engels, [1848]

1987: 17). The common experience of exploitation fomented the

collective class-consciousness of the proletariat: “The modern

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labourer… instead of rising with the process of industry, sinks

deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own

class’ (20). Capitalism, then, produces its own ‘grave-diggers”

(Marx and Engels [1848] 1987: 21). The resulting polarisation

between Bourgeoisie and Proletariat classes would, according to

Marx, incite revolution and ultimately result in the

reorganisation and rationalisation of society. Inequality was both

the motor and the target of the revolution; inequality, instituted

and intensified through capitalism could be overcome. The

simplification of class antagonisms has been belied by the

fragmentation of working class solidarity (Bendix, 1974: 152).

Nevertheless, the theory highlights the social origin of

inequalities, rooted, for Marx, in class distinctions that were

underpinned by property relations.

The capital theory of inequality stresses the decisive

significance of material phenomena in determining social inequality.

More recent sociological and economic theories of inequality

concentrate instead upon cultural forces in modern societies (cf.

Alexander, 2007; Schröder, this volume) and socio-structural phenomena

such as governance, technology and social institutions (e.g.

Acemoglu and Robinson, 2015). One of the originators of the idea

of human capital, Theodore W. Schultz (1961), notes how human capital

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comprising of skills and knowledge have grown in Western societies

at a much faster rate than non-human capital. Schultz suggests

that investment in human capital has driven much of the growth in

real wages of income earning person in recent decades as well as

economic growth in general (cf. Benhabib and Spiegel, 1994).

However, human capital theories, as well as efforts to apply them

empirically, remain hamstrung by a superficial conception of the

way in which human capital is manifested in social reality. Human

capital theory treats the complex dimension of social capacities,

cognitive abilities and skills as a “black box”.1 In contrast,

Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital begins to open up this black

box and alerts us to the existence of immaterial forms of capital

and its context sensitive acquisition and disposition. 2

As we investigate next, the cultural capital theory of inequality

continues to emphasise the persistence of patterns of inequality

over time and space, and the apparent ease with which immaterial

capital resources are inherited and passed on from generation to

1 More recent empirical work by economists, for example (Autor, 2014) and (Autor and Handel, 2009) transcends this deficiency of human capital theory by investigating the role of cognitive skills.2 In an investigation of the unequal scholastic achievement of children fromdifferent ethnic groups in the United States, George Farkas (1996) uses bothhuman capital theory and cultural capital theory as explanations of the widelydisparate rates of success of various ethnic groups in schools. Farkas (1996:10-12) suggest that a synthesis of both views can be created that is better suitedto account for the differential acquisition of skills in schools and offers amore adequate perspective of the complex sum of all factors involved both withinand outside of the school system.

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generation. Cultural capital theories allow for or even emphasize

the ability of individual actors to monetarize immaterial

resources and point to social processes that lead to an unequal

accumulation of capital over time.

Cultural capital theories of inequality 3

The concept “cultural capital” was developed by Pierre Bourdieu,

([1983] 1986: 243) initially to explain the unequal scholastic

achievement of children from different social classes in France.

Unequal academic successes are related to the existing stratified

distribution of cultural capital among social classes and the

unequal opportunity for acquiring it domestically (cf. Bourdieu

and Passaron, [1964] 1979). Cultural capital is added to existing

cultural capital stocks thereby reproducing the structure of the

distribution of cultural capital between social classes (cf.

Bourdieu, [1971] 1973: 73). Cultural capital theory acknowledges

not only pre-existing unequal access to the distributional

channels for its accumulation, but also the different ways in

which the chances of players are skewed from the beginning. As the

societal division of labour increases, the social conditions of

3 The section on symbolic capital draws on, incorporates and substantially extends a discussion of “forms of capital” that can be found in Stehr (2001:48-53)

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the transmission of cultural capital tend to be much more

disguised than those that govern economic capital.

Bourdieu distinguishes cultural capital from both economic capital

and social capital. Social capital refers to the gains individuals

may derive from their informal and formal network of social

relations (see also Coleman, 1988; Glaeser, Laibson, Scheinkman

and Scoutter, 1999; Young, 2014) 4. The various forms of capital

correlate highly with each other and form what could be called

capital “repertoires”. Capital resources are convertible and

transmissible most significantly within families. One form of

capital “comes to be added, in most cases” to other forms of

capital (Bourdieu, [1971] 1973: 99); for example, cultural capital

can be translated into economic capital (that is “immediately and

directly convertible into money”).5 The specific form of “profit”

4 Robert Putnam’s (2002a) collection about the state of social capital in contemporary developed nations documents common trends in the decline of social capital, for example, waning participation in elections, political parties, unions and churches. These forms of social capital, Putnam (2002b: 411) observes, “were especially important for empowering less educated, less affluentportions of the population.” However, such more “formal” social capital resources “seem to be offset at least in part by increases of informal, fluid, personal forms of social connection” or loose forms of social capital in contemporary society. 5 Bourdieu (1999: 336) suggests that his symbolic capital theory is a fusion ofthree traditions: (1) the constructivist tradition, (2) the structuralist orhermeneutic tradition and (3) the tradition that views capital -- as does Marxor Nietzsche -- as instrument of power by prioritizing of economic relations:„As the synthesis of the three traditions, the notion of symbolic power (orcapital) enables one to account fort he relations of force that are actualizedin and by relations of cognition (or recognition) and of communication.“

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that comes with symbolic capital is distinction, which manifests

itself in a particular life-style.

There are different forms of cultural capital: Bourdieu

differentiates between its symbolic form as internalized culture

(Bourdieu, 1999: 337); its objectified form in material objects

and media, and its institutionalized form (for example, as

academic certificates). 6 These distinctions signal the ways in

which cultural capital is stored and passed on by way of becoming

an integral habitus of the individual (that is, the repertoire of

social dispositions of the individual; cf. Bourdieu, ([1980] 1990:

66-79).7

Recently the concept of “erotic capital” has been formulated to

address the alleged increasing importance of the asset of

attractiveness in today’s highly sexualised societies (Hakim,

2012). Catherine Hakim argues that this form of capital is

important in understanding social and economic relations, that it

6 Bourdieu’s discussion of cultural capital resonates strongly with GeorgSimmel’s observations ([1907] 1978: 439-440) in The Philosophy of Money about therole of the “intellect” in modern society. Simmel notes “the apparent equalitywith which educational materials are available to everyone interested in themis, in reality, a sheer mockery. The same is true for other freedoms accorded byliberal doctrines which, though they certainly do not hamper the individual fromgaining goods of any kind, do however disregard the fact that only those alreadyprivileged in some way or another have the possibility of acquiring them”. 7 ”The culture that dominant classes uphold and that in turn directs and informswhat is actually taught in schools and colleges cannot claim any intrinsicsuperiority”, as Goldthorpe (2007: 11) observes, nor is it “open to any morepragmatic validation in terms of the demands that modern societies typicallyimpose upon their members … [cultural capital] has to be understood as beingalways determined by the interests of dominant classes.”

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is independent of social class, and that unlike other forms of

capital, women tend to possess more of this commodity than men

(cf. Hakim, 2009). However, she argues that it has been overlooked

in sociological theory due to the patriarchal bias in the

discipline. Hakim points to the unequal attention, value and

legitimacy given to different forms of capital, which reproduces

gender inequality.

The existence of different forms of capital and their complex

interrelationship with each other and political and economic

processes in a changing social context indicates that social

differentiation shifts over time. This contradicts the intention

of symbolic capital theory to account for the almost perfect

social reproduction of the dominant system of social

differentiation. Such a conclusion can be challenged by the

existence of significant processes of upward (and downward) social

mobility, particularly following the expansion of education in

many European countries after World War II (cf. Lipset and Bendix,

1964). Empirical findings reveal that schools and universities do

not just reproduce symbolic capital; they actually produce it (cf.

Halsey, Heath and Ridge, 1980).

Indeed, although Bourdieu’s notion of cultural capital is not

fully a-historical, it suffers from its lack of historical specificity; it is

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not adequately connected to different major societal formations

such as industrial society, the state or science. Bourdieu does

not explore the socio-historical conditions under which different

strategies and regimes of inequality become possible. The extent

and ease of convertibility of different forms of capital varies

within historical contexts (see Calhoun, 1995:139-141). Cultural

capital apparently is acquired and transmitted mechanically and

closely mirrors the ostensibly objective realities of class. But

culture is fluid and leaves “much opportunity for choice and

variation” (DiMaggio, 1997:265; Hall 1992). Bourdieu gives limited

recognition to the openness and access to the various social

capacities that individuals and groups may be able to convert into

struggles for change, resistance or innovation in contemporary

societies (cf. Garnham and Williams, 1986: 129).

The extent to which the educational system in modern societies

actually fails to straightforwardly reproduce the existing system

of social inequality (Boudon, 1974) is testimony not only to the

dynamic character of modern society but also to profound changes

in inequality regimes in which knowledge and knowledge skills play

a more significant and independent role (see Stehr, 1999, 2015).

New “structures of consciousness” (to use a term coined by

Benjamin Nelson [1973]) cannot be captured by Bourdieu’s theory

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which is unable to encapsulate the extent to which cultural

capital does not perpetuate patterns of inequality but can be

strategically deployed to soften and undermine them.

The Functional Theory of Inequality

For some, inequality is simply ineradicable because of the crucial

social function it plays. The issue of the compatibility or

incommensurability of liberty and equality, as has often been

stressed, is one of the central themes of the theory of

liberalism. Inequality here is termed ‘stratification and is

viewed as functionally necessary. 8 For example, Talcott Parsons

writes: ‘Systems of stratification in certain respects are seen to

8 The functional theory of social inequality is the most important contrast and competitor to the capital theories of social inequality. This theory can trace its origins to a paper by Talcott Parsons (1940) on an “Analytical approach to the theory ofstratification”. The distinctive feature of the structure of social stratification in modern societies “is an hierarchical aspect to such a system” (Parsons, [1949] 1953: 327). There are two fundamental functional bases for an inevitable hierarchical social differentiation: One is the “differentiation of levels of skill and competence” and, the second, the “organization of an even increasing scale .. [as] a fundamental feature of such a system” (Parsons, [1949] 1953: 327). Following Parsons, Davis and Moore (1945) contributed a paperthat became the core perspective of the functional theory of stratification and was further explicated by successive cohorts of social theorists. Parsons (1970:13) revisits his 1940 paper on stratification and shifts to an analysis of “the erosion of the legitimacy of the traditional bases of inequality … [that] has brought to a new level of prominence value-commitments to an essential equality of status of all members of modern societal communities.” In retrospect, Parsonsconjecture is incorrect since professional observations about inequality in the 1970s centered once more on a discussion of American exceptionalism (that is, why is there so much more inequality in the United States than in European societies, cf. Glaeser, 2005) and the degree to which inequality regimes were and are tolerated in American society. Parsons was criticised by C.Wright Mills for neglecting ‘power, with economics and political institutions’ thus legitimizing any form of social order (C.Wright Mills 1959: 35-36)

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have positive functions in the stabilization of social systems.

The institutionalization of motivation operates within the systems

of capitalist profit making’ (Parsons, 1949] 1953: 334).

Similarly, the liberal Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises (1963:

287) strongly affirms that inequality in wealth and income “is an

essential feature of the market economy” (see also Dahrendorf,

1968: 151-152). Von Mises assertion is grounded in the conviction

that liberty and equality are incompatible: “No system of the

social division of labor can do without a method that makes

individuals responsible for their contributions to the joint

productive effort. If this responsibility is not brought about by

the price structure of the market and the inequality of wealth and

income it begets, it must be enforced by the methods of direct

compulsion as practiced by the police” (von Mises, 1963: 289).

According to Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore (1945) inequality or

“stratification is universal and impossible to eliminate. Their

“functional theory of inequality” explains the universal presence

of stratification as a functional necessity; it is the inevitable

result of the imperative for any society to place and motivate its

members: “As a functioning mechanism a society must somehow

distribute its members in social positions and induce them to

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perform the duties of these positions” (Davis and Moore, 1945:

242).

Davis and Moore explain that more important positions and those that

are hard to fill need to be rewarded more highly that others. If a

position “is easily filled, it need not be heavily rewarded, even

though important” (Davis and Moore, 1945: 243). This is true

whether the economic structure is competitive or non-competitive.

Societies have a variety of rewards at their disposal such as

income, prestige or spare time. For Davis and Moore, then, social

inequality is “an unconsciously evolved device by which societies

insure that the most important positions are conscientiously filled

by the most qualified persons” (Davis and Moore, 1945: 243).

Differences across societies and institutions within societies in

the structure of stratification systems would then amount to

differences in functional importance and scarcity of personnel.

As the authors of functional theories of inequality themselves

admit, however, functional importance is not easy to establish. If

one infers functional importance from the degree of prestige

associated with a position, circular reasoning may well be at work

(a critique Melvin Tumin, [1953 and 1963] has specified). Davis

and Moore (1945: 244) argue that functional importance hinges upon

(1) the degree to which a position is unique in its performance

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repertoire and (2) the extent to which other positions are

dependent on the one in question. Still, this theory of inequality

has to find a way of accounting for societal differences in

differentially rewarded positions that cannot be reduced to

functional importance. The mistake here is “to impute to total

social systems a kind of rationality with regard to society-wide

prestige and reward” (Tumin 1963: 24). Stratification is produced

and diffused throughout society by non-rational mechanisms

(ibid.). 9 What is also omitted, therefore, is recognition of the

fact that, in really existing social institutions and societies,

the ability to acquire the necessary qualifications for

“functionally important positions” is rarely unbiased. This theory

paid no acknowledgement of the issue of social justice; it further

remains silent about the wider social costs of stratification

(Wrong, 1959; Lenski, 1966).

Empirical Measurements of Inequality

In contrast to the functional theory of inequality, the prevailing

assumption, at least until two or three decades ago, has been that

advanced industrial society (see König, [1962] 1965: 85-88) and9 Niklas Luhmann’s (1997: 774) critique of the assumption of a broad, society-wideapplicability of the functional theory of inequality is to restrict its range atbest to organizations. The functional theory cannot form the foundation for atheory of modern society; it cannot account for example for the ways in which glaringlife chance differences are reproduced even though such differences are nolonger required.

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more generally, the modernization process, is bound to produce

societies that are less hierarchical, more flexible and that

reflect individual abilities more closely (e.g., Schelsky,

1955:218-242; Dahrendorf, [1957] 1959:274; 1967:68; Goldthorpe,

1966:650). Cosmopolitanism heralded an era of global equality and

universal inclusion (Jain, this volume).

Such political optimism has given way to the realization that the

expected modification in inequality has not been achieved. A

noticeable levelling in some respects has, of course, taken place;

life expectancy has risen, standards of health care and social

security have improved; educational attainment and duration of

schooling has increased (Armingoen and Schaedel, 2015: 2). Yet the

rapid increase in inequality in recent years has been made evident

by a rising stack of empirical research. Inequality is notoriously

difficult to measure. Special statistical measures of dispersion

have been deployed to measure the concentration of wealth and

thereby reduce the empirical pattern of inequality to a single

figure. For example, the Lorenz Curve is a graphic representation of

the cumulative distribution function of the empirical probability

distribution of wealth or income. The information in the Lorenz

Curve may be summarised by the Gini Coefficient, which thus provides a

measurement (between 1 and 0) of inequality in a population. A low

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figure represents a more equal distribution of household income, a

high figure a significant concentration of prosperity. Countries

with low Gini coefficient are the Scandinavian societies. In

Europe, at least, the Gini coefficients have remained almost

constant for decades after 1995.10 Significantly higher

concentrations of income may be found in African and Latin

American countries. In the United States, the coefficient in 2010

stood at 0.411.11 

However, these figures are not sensitive to the differences in

income and wealth distribution. The distribution of wealth tends

to be more unequal than the distribution of income. But income

inequality, as shown in Figure 1, has increased – both across

times of economic crisis and growth (OECD, 2015: 21). Trends in

income inequality, at least in the United States, do not follow a

linear pattern: between 1973 and 2009 there has been a rise in

income for individual wage earners with significant occupational

skill. But for less educated workers “the increase in the slope is

small or perhaps reversed” (Garicano and Rossi-Hansberg, 2015: 5;

10 Since the year 2000, household income inequalities in Germany have increased significantly (cf. Grabka and Kuhn, 2012), although more recently the same author reports (Grabka, Goebel and Schupp, 2012) that the increase in household income inequality in German has been arrested. See  Flora Wisdorff, “Deutschland wird gleicher,” Die Welt October 28, 2012 for the political implications of these findings

11 http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI (accessed June 5, 2015).

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also Acemoglu and Autor, 2011: 1061-1079; Dustmann, Lusteck and

Schönberg, 2009; Atkinson, 2008). 12

Figure 1: Lower and lowest incomes were increasingly left behind

Trends in real household incomes at the bottom, the middle and the

top, OECD average, 1985 = 1

Note: Income refers to disposable household income, corrected for household size. OECD is the unweighted average of 17 countries (Canada, Germany, Denmark, Finland, France, United Kingdom, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Sweden and United States).

Source: OECD Income Distribution Database (IDD), www.oecd.org/social/income-distribution-database.htm.

Inequality patterns over generations related to wealth

inequalities lead to what Thomas Piketty ([2013] 2014: 173, 237)

12 Viewing economic processes through the lens of organizations the explanation for the widening wage gap according to Garicano and Rossi-Hansberg (2015: 27) “can be well understood as a response to the important changes in ICT [Information and Communication Technologies] we have observed in the past few decades. Communication technology is highlighting the advantages of superstars and is making the less skilled more equal, thereby hurting the middle class. This is what we have termed the shadow of superstars.”

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calls “patrimonial capitalism”. Patrimonial capitalism flourished

during the early years of the 20th century and has been re-emerging

since 1970. It represents the relative strength of private

capital, that is, a change in the capital/income ratio and the

capital-labour split in favour of capital. Piketty thus highlights

the role of intergenerational transmission of wealth in

undermining meritocratic values ([2013] 2014: 26). Indeed, one

area of revealing empirical research relates to social mobility

and the flexibility of inequality regimes. Empirical research on

social mobility trajectories in advanced societies has focused on

intra- and intergenerational mobility patterns.13 In a study that examines

sources of lifetime inequality, Huggett, Venture and Yaron (2007)

find, using data about mean earnings of male cohorts in the United

States, that variation in initial human capital is substantially

more significant than variation in learning ability or initial

wealth for determining how agents fare in life. One of the

noteworthy empirical findings for Germany is that despite

educational expansion and reform in the last decades, social

selectivity in access to education is comparatively and

persistently very high. This finding applies with particular force

to admittance to higher education where it has even increased (cf.

13 For a discussion of theoretical and empirical frames of references of social mobility see Mayer, 1972.

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Lörz and Schindler, 2011).

In the case of multigenerational mobility, the evidence is divided. On

the one hand we find conclusions that assert that all advantages

and disadvantage of ancestors tend to vanish in only three

generations (e.g. Becker and Tomes, 1986: 28). On the other hand,

other observations about multigenerational mobility conclude that

the persistence rate of social status is quite high over time.

Intergenerational differences tend to disappear very slowly and

follow a pattern of a regression toward the mean (e.g. Clark,

2014: 212, 2015). In societies with a great measure of social

inequality, the so-called “Great Gatsby Curve” (cf. Corak, 2013) –

which shows the correlation between inequality and intergeneration

earnings (see Figure 2) - indicates that individuals find it more

and more difficult to move outside their earning class in which

they were born. This is not due to genetic inheritance of

attributes that disposed towards higher wealth. As a recent study

of intergenerational wealth correlations in Swedish families

(Black et al. 2015: 4) “even before any inheritance has occurred,

wealth of adopted children is more closely related to the wealth

of their adoptive parents than to that of their biological

parents.” It seems that even in apparently egalitarian

27

Scandanavian countries, “wealth begets wealth” (Black et al. 2015:

14).

Figure 2: Inequality and Mobility

Note: Compiled from different sources as in D’Addio, A.C. (2007), “Intergenerational Transmission of Disadvantage: Mobility or Immobility Across Generations?”, OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers, No. 52, OECD Publishing, Paris, http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/217730505550; and OECD (2008), Growing Unequal? Income Distribution in OECD Countries, OECD Publishing, Paris, http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264044197-en

Source: OECD (2015: 72)

In an analysis of multigenerational mobility evidence accumulated

to date, Solon (2015) surmises that the patterns of mobility

across generations are far more complex than many studies have so

far assumed and that mobility across generations probably varies

28

considerably between and within societies depending on the times;

for example, in the role grandparents play on the lives of their

grandchildren or the importance of ethnicity and race in different

countries and communities (see also Lindahl, Palme, Sandgren-

Massih and Sjögren, 2014). More generally, inequalities are

manifested in different ways and intersect with the various forms

of capital that can make patterns hard to measure and predict. 14

A notable empirical finding has been the widespread public

misperception of income inequality. Based on a number of large-scale

cross-national surveys in recent years in many countries the

authors (Gimpelson and Treisman, 2015) find that respondents are

often misinformed about the extent of income inequality in their

societies; for example, in countries where respondents perceived

the greatest inequality, such as the Ukraine, it is the lowest in

the world while respondents in the United States saw little

inequality where it is in fact quite high.

Being misinformed about the magnitude of income inequality does

not mean, however, that individuals are unconcerned about

inequality regimes in their countries. A survey carried in Germany

dating to 2009/2010 shows that the vast majority (between 80 to14 One of the more remarkable divisions emerging most recently is the unequaluse of mobile airwaves. Arieso, a company in England that tracks the usage ofmobile devices, found that in 2009 the top 3% of heavy users generated 40% ofthe network traffic. Only a couple of years later, the same category of userscommands 70 percent of the traffic (as quoted in “Top 1% of mobile users consumehalf of world’s bandwidth, and gap is growing,” New York Times, January 5, 2012).

29

96%) of the respondents consider the existing income inequalities

in the country as “too large”. Not surprisingly, the critical

attitude toward income inequality declines with the income and

educational level of the respondents. Only a minority considers

the social differences in the German society as just (Noll and

Weick, 2012). A recent New York Times/CBS News poll shows that

inequality of wealth and income troubles Americans, independent of

political leaning; a strong majority of respondents to a

representative telephone survey report that wealth should be more

evenly distributed and that wealth inequalities are an urgent

political issue.15 Given the attention in recent public discussion

to material inequalities such findings do not come as a surprise.

In spite of misperception about the degree of social inequality,

such findings do not justify the inference that inequality is

considered to be a legitimate feature of socio-economic processes.

The social and political consequences of inequality

Does inequality matter? Is it a symptom of a sick society or, on

the contrary, both the effect and the cause of a healthy economy?

The conviction of the ultimate fairness of the market outcomes of

industrial society gave rise, for many years, to a broad lack of

interest among social scientists in questions of social15 “Inequality troubles American across party lines,“ New York Times, June 3, 2015.

30

inequality. Today economics is at the forefront of inequality

research while sociology and other social science disciplines

continue to give scant attention to the topic. 16 As Joseph

Stiglitz (2012: 52) asks: “if markets were the principal driving

force (of inequality), why do seemingly similar advanced

industrial countries differ so much?” The answer must be that

markets alone do not shape economic inequalities; political

processes, institutional arrangements and societal values work

either to the advantage of those at the top of the inequality

formation or to the detriment of those at the bottom of the ladder

(Rehbein, 2015: 153).

The social costs of inequality tend to be glossed over by

economists who focus upon the gross national product as a primary

measure of national well-being and thus endorse market-induced

inequalities. Unequal outcomes are an intended or unintended

beneficial product for societies at large leaving everyone “better

off” (a measure of the so-called “elevator effect”, see Beck,

1986) 17. It therefore is not only in John Maynard Keynes’ ([1919]

16 The economist Robert H. Frank (2007), for example, published a plea for apolicy focus on social inequality rather than economic growth (also Noah, 2012).Nonetheless, the issue of inequality has, at least in the United States, gainedlittle if any political grip (cf. Nichols Lemann, “Evening the odds,” The NewYorker, April 23, 2012). As the entrepreneur Peter Thiel notes in an interview in theAmerican Prospect (March/April 2012 issue): “In the history of the modern world,inequality has only been ended through communist revolution, war or deflationaryeconomic collapse.”17 Ulrich Beck (1986: 121-160) has focused on the linear transformation and elevation of material inequality since the decade of the fifties of the last

31

2009; also [1930] 1972: 329) treatment of The Economic Consequences of

the Peace but also prominently in his General Theory of Employment, Interest

and Money (e.g. 1936: 342-343) that we find repeated references to

the “social and psychological justification for significant

inequalities of incomes and wealth” (emphasis added). Moreover, as

Keynes ([1919] 2009: 17) also stresses “it was precisely the

inequality of the distribution of wealth and of capital which made

possible those vast accumulations of fixed wealth and capital

improvements which distinguished that age from all others. Herein

lay, in fact, the main justification of the Capitalist System.” 18

In Milton Friedman’s (1962) vindication of American capitalism the

promise of high social mobility plays a significant role.

However, empirical research on social mobility in the United

States over the last decade does not justify the widespread belief

in the existence of the American Dream (see DiPrete, 2007; Klasen,

2014; Putnam, 2015). 19 As the recent OECD (2015: 22) report: In it

century, sustaining otherwise established relations and concentrations of inequality. His primary focus, then, is on the extent to which the elevation in the general standard of living has allowed for the dissolution of class-based social conduct or for a further individualization. But his discussion remains transfixed by what might well be reversible material pre-conditions of changes in the life world of individuals. 18 See also John M. Keynes’ [1925] 1963: 307) discussion of the superiority of irreligious capitalism over religious communism. Irreligious capitalism „has to be immensely, not merely moderately successful to survive … If irreligious Capitalism is ultimately to defeat religious Communism, it is not enough that isshould be economically more efficient – it must be many times as efficient.” And, with such efficiency, comes inequality. 19 The exception is the substantial increase in upward mobility of earnings overa lifetime among women in recent decades in the United States (see Kopczuk, Saezand Song, 2010).

32

Together. Why Less Inequality Benefits All, makes clear, making the rich richer

while the incomes of the bottom 40% of the income earners in many

counties remain flat is not justifiable – as the evidence from the

last three decades indicates: it “could be seen as sensible from

an economic perspective – after all, some are better off, and none

are worse off. However, policies which lead to this outcome may

not be even economically sensible if wider inequality reduces the

capacity of the bottom 40% to improve their position and that of

their children in the future.” The accumulated evidence assembled

by the OECD (2015) for its members over the past 30 years comes to

the important conclusion that when income inequality rises,

economic growth falls.

The well-known study by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, The

Spirit Level (2010), convincingly depicts the social costs of

inequality, ranging from a higher crime rate, teenage pregnancies

and mental illness. They argue that the “intuitive” recognition

shared by many that “inequality is socially corrosive” is correct

(Wilkinson and Pickett, 2010: X). Looking at the big picture:

“Inequality can be seen as a reflection of the benevolent

incentives that lead people to do the best for themselves and for

society”; if such outcomes are not possible or eliminated,

“talented young people are diverted from more worthwhile pursuits,

33

which undermine national prosperity” (Deaton, 2014: 783).20 The

demand for policies that ensure a more equitable distribution of

the dividends that come with economic growth are manifested in

what Pierre Rosanvallon ([2011] 2013) describes as a “society of

equals”.

A society of equals involves more than economic redistribution. It

involves the adjustment of other sources and manifestations of

inequality that are linked to economic inequality but cannot be

reduced to it. Research from other areas of social science points

to the existence of socially selective barriers that prevent

members of particular groups from reaching a particular position.

Such barriers may be overt mechanisms such as apartheid or

invisible ‘glass ceilings’ and have been morally condemned or

interpreted as an urgent call for political action. Paradoxically,

however, one social cost of inequality is the impact that it has

on political participation (see Shore, this volume). Links can be

drawn between rising economic inequality and declining voter turn-

out, for example. This then has an impact upon political

representation (Rossett, this volume). It might be hypothesized

that the absence of extreme inequalities in household income

20 A informative summary of the social costs of inequality in the United Statesmay be found in “Income Inequality Is Costing the U.S. on Social Issues,” NewYork Times, May 3, 2015. Similarly, for an informative account of the moralunderpinnings of different justification for patterns of inequality seeRowlingson and Connor, 2011.

34

generally fosters democracy (cf. Huntington, 1984; Solt, 2008).21

This is because economic wealth is often an indicator of

education, which is correlated with political participation.

Inequality also erodes trust, which is important for a healthy

civic politics (see Mcnall, this volume). Deep cleavages of

economic inequality might be expected to lead to declining

political engagement, especially among the poorer strata of

society (Dahl, 2006:85-86; Tilly, 2003; Acemoglu and Robinson,

2006:36). On the other hand, inequalities can lead to political

unrest, which in turn provokes elite-challenging behaviours. This,

however, also hinges upon the opportunity structures and the

existence of networks (Nakhaie, this volume).

Frederick Solt (2008) has undertaken an empirical analysis of the

impact of economic inequality on political engagement in a diverse

sample of rich and upper-middle income democracies, using cross-

national survey data for 22 countries.22 His findings suggest that

collective inequality reduces the political engagements of the

non-affluent strata (also Soss, 1999) and thereby potentially

enhances the political power of the affluent segments of society.

21 The section on the interrelation between social inequality and democracy refers to observations made in Stehr (2015).22 This data is mainly based on information gathered by the World Value Survey, the Eurobarometer, and the European Election Survey. The Gini coefficient for household income inequalities serves as the measure of national economic inequality. In addition, a large number of control variables are employed.

35

He concludes that:

Declining political interest, discussion of politics, and

participation in elections among poorer citizens with rising

inequality attest to the increased ability of relatively wealthy

individuals to make politics meaningless for those with lower

incomes in such circumstances. The results of this study indicate

that democracy is more likely to fulfill its promise of providing

political equality among all citizens when economic resources are

distributed more equally (Solt, 2008:58)

Klaus Armingeon and Lisa Schaedel (2015) expand on this. They

explain that inequality in voting in the mid to late twentieth

century was very low due to the mobilisation of the lower classes

by influential social groups such as political parties and trade

unions. Yet today, despite levels of education rising since the

1950’s, turnout has not seen a correlated increase. Less educated,

poorer citizens are more likely to refrain from voting: “citizens

with low levels of education are frequently citizens in the lower

social strata and also lack capabilities to make reasoned

electoral decisions” (Armingeon and Schaedel, 2015: 5).

As Armingeon and Schaedel notice, this is not necessarily a

problem if democracy is only regarded in the “minimalist”,

“liberal” or “Schumpeterian” sense (Armingeon and Schaedel, 2015:

36

3). But for other models of democracy, lack of participation by

the demos is clearly a problem; undermining the legitimacy of a

regime and actually depoliticising democracy. For more recent

accounts of democracy, inclusion and equality of all are crucial

for democratic participation. For some, political decisions and

institutions can only claim legitimacy when they are based upon

“processes of collective deliberation conducted rationally and

fairly among free and equal individuals” (Benhabib, 1996: 69).

While the possibility of fully inclusive deliberative procedures

can be contested, the possibility of challenging the status quo

depends upon a degree of equality. Inequality, then, endangers

democracy and stifles the expression of political alternatives

that might actually challenge existing patterns of inequality.

This is revealed in the analysis of the connection between crime

and inequality. Ross Matsueda and Maria Grigoryeva (2014: 683)

point out that the punishment as well as the very definition of

crime itself is disproportionately influenced by the powerful, who

have a greater jurisdiction over criminal law. “Crime, then, is

ultimately rooted in political-economic inequality in a profound

way” (Matsueda and Grigoryeva, 2014: 684). The designation of

certain acts as crimes may be justified not because they are seen

as wrong in themselves, but because they must be prohibited in

37

order to ensure a regulated society. These sorts of “mala

prohibita crimes” such as traffic violations (ibid.) are created

through a political process controlled by the political elites. As

a result “criminologists have focused upon crime in the streets

rather than crime in the suites” (Matsueda and Grigoryeva, 2014:

685). High social inequality drives the possibility for a high

crime rate, through the reduction of social capital of certain

groups, the undermining of social cohesion and the growth of

participation in organised groups that may favour criminal

behaviour (see Wilkinson and Pickett, 2010; also Paxton, 2002).

Not only does social inequality nurture the potential for a

certain crimes, however, it also produces an unequal level of

severity of punishments of those crimes. Arguably, then, the

underclass that is produced and afflicted by social inequalities,

are also punished more severely for their crimes. The

transformations in the economy such as the loss of manufacturing

jobs in the US, disproportionally affect urban young black males.

And such incarceration, in turn, aggravates social inequality by

undermining the well-being of a large section of society (Matsueda

and Grigoryeva, 2014: 709).

Past and recent research has discerned again and again that

inequalities correlated with race, for example with respect to the

38

United States prison system: “African-American males are 6 times

more likely to be incarcerated than white males. If current trends

continue, 1 of every 3 black American males born today can expect

to go to prison in his lifetime… compared to one of every

seventeen white males.” (The Sentencing Project, 2013: 1). What is

revealed here is that it is not the natural differences that

underpin these social inequalities, but rather that social

inequalities underpin these supposedly natural racial differences

and contribute to the construction of the very category of race

(Root, 2000).

Emerging Patterns of Inequality 23

Classical theories of social inequality all display a primary

interest in the vertical nature of social inequality. Inequality

directly or indirectly is regarded as a function of the relation

of the individual to work or capital and its benefits in the form

of monetary income, interest, rent and profit. The identity of

individuals is mediated, if not entirely determined, by their

relation to the work process. Both Marxist and non-Marxist

approaches alike are convinced that industrial society is still

23 This section of our introduction relies on ideas on the future of social inequality that may be found in Stehr, 1999 and 1994.

39

primarily a society of labour (Arbeitsgesellschaft)24; that inequality

is shaped by class (Marshall et al., 1988: 183); and that the

class based inequality tends to be reproduced

intergenerationally.25

Observations about changes in the basis of inequality in

contemporary society do exist, but in the majority of cases,

vertical social hierarchies are effectively retained. In so-called

multidimensional theories of stratification (cf. Barber, 1968),

the dimensions usually identified as stratifying individuals, such

as occupation, income, occupational prestige and education, are

for the most part viewed as derivatives of class. Descriptions of

new forms of social inequality therefore amount to a further

elaboration and evolution of the logic of the industrial social

structure and a perpetuation of its inherent contradictions (cf.

Stearns, 1974:17).

24 Perhaps the most obvious distinction between Marxist and non-Marxist theoriesof social inequality in industrial society is related to the conceptions of whatought to constitute the central unit of analysis in research and theory concerned with inequalities. Non-Marxist theories of social stratification tend to generalize about inequality based on individual characteristics while Marxisttheories prefer social collectivities as the basic unit of social inequality. The individual dimension is then seen as essentially "subjective" by its criticswhile "objective" units such as social class draw the objection of lacking precisely such a subjective dimension.25 Another shared feature of contemporary theories of social inequality is that their assumption of bounded individual nation states as constitutive of the political limits of industrial society. Such a restriction may be contrasted with Ralf Dahrendorf’s (2000) discussion of the emergence of a global class.

40

But there are significant changes in the nature of society and

capitalism from existing patterns of stratification. There are at

least five important societal changes that may underpin the future

transformation of social inequality in contemporary society.

First, are the transformations of capitalism. Luc Boltanski and

Eve Chiapello’s (2007) work explicates the changing form and

“spirit” of capitalism and its dimensions of inequality.

Capitalism, they emphasise, is dynamic: in order to remain

exciting and secure, and the best and unquestioned ‘order of

things’ (2007: 10), capitalism continually transforms itself

(2007: 28). Boltanski and Chiapello (2007: 73) argue that the form

of capitalism that has emerged over recent decades is best

understood as ‘network capitalism’. Here, ‘lean firms’ headed by

visionary networks work on temporary ‘projects’. “The standard

image of the modern firm today is of a slim core surrounded by a

conglomeration of suppliers, subcontractors, service providers and

temporary personnel making it possible to vary the workforce

according to the level of business and allied firms. It is then

said to operate as a network” (Boltanski and Chiapello, 2007: 74).

To be successful, networkers must be mobile, and their mobility

depends upon other people’s immobility. This is how inequality is

manifested in network capitalism: for Boltanski and Chiapello

41

(2007: 354), contemporary forms of inequality should not only be

analysed as a matter of exclusion, but a matter of exploitation, too. It

is not enough to notice how some are excluded, a strong critique

of the inequality that exists today demands attention to “the

social asymmetry from which some people profit to the detriment of

others.” Exploitation under capitalism is not always visible, but

involves long chains between the powerful and those who are

“immobile”. The consolidation of network capitalism is likely to

ensure that chains of exploitation are lengthened as they function

to sharpen inequalities.

The second significant change for patterns of inequality stems

from the rise of "knowledge" and “knowledge skills”. In the

productive process, for example, "direct" labour is giving way to

another form of work based on the growing importance of knowledge

skills (see Stehr, 2015). To suggest that knowledge plays an

increasingly important role in shaping the nature and the

structure of social inequality of modern society does not mean

that knowledge as a resource for action is a novel phenomenon in

the production and the analysis of social inequality. On the

contrary, knowledge representing a variety of cultural

competencies and abilities has, of course, always played a

significant role throughout history in determining aspects of

42

inequality and its evaluation in society. For example, the ability

to read and write the dominant language in a society, and

knowledge of the laws and procedures governing transactions in

society or religious knowledge, has had an important place in

inequality systems as have other cultural abilities. Nor does it

mean that knowledge is an immediately productive resource.26 The

expansion of the knowledge intensive service sector might hold out

promise for the reduction of gender based labour inequalities, for

example, yet this appears not to be the case, since structures of

gender persist across different workplaces (Dueñas-Fernández et

al., 2015). How does the growing importance of knowledge affect

patterns of social inequality? And why is knowledge capable of

eroding and ultimately perhaps replacing what have been for

centuries, and continue to be seen by many observers, the solid

foundations for patterns of social inequality?

Modern socio-structural conditions that underpin the emergence of

knowledge and cognitive and social skills as a stratifying

principle include the relative decline in the immediate and

unmediated importance of the economy for individuals and

26 When Paul Krugman (2015) emphatically stresses that “rising inequality isn’t about who has the knowledge; it’s about who has the power”, his emphasis precisely refers to knowledge as a necessary resource. It is not a sufficient resource since it implementation as a capacity to act requites control over the circumstances of social action (see Adolf and Stehr, 2014.

43

households. 27 What diminishes is the tightness of the linkage in

the material dependence of many actors on their occupational

status only and what increases is the relative material

emancipation from the labour market in the form of personal and

household wealth.28 The decreasing material subordination to one's

occupational position, of course, not only affects those who work

but applies with even greater force, paradoxically perhaps, to the

rising segment of the population which is out of work and which

therefore is involuntarily cut off from the labour market.

The third significant change could be the changes to the welfare

state. At present, the establishment and guarantee of a bundle of

social citizenship rights, provides a floor of existential welfare below

which no one is allowed to slip. The establishment of such social

entitlements restricts and diminishes the immediate and unmediated

dependence of individuals and households on the dynamics of the

economy in general and the labour market in particular. The

welfare state has to a certain extent implemented a crucial

‘safety net’, as well as a certain level of equality of opportunity.

27 Stephen Kalberg (1992) has noted that the de-coupling of work from socialstatus in modern society or of debates on the place of work in post-industrialsociety is not necessarily universal but strongly mediated by national,cultural, political and historical milieus.28 For a discussion of a number of relevant elements to the change in work -forexample, the reduction in the hours per year and years per lifetime worked orthe substantial rise in occupational income that increases freedom to find andafford opportunities outside of work and decreases the marginal benefits derivedfrom further incremental additions to earned income, see Kern and Schumann(1983).

44

What anti-discrimination laws have formally guaranteed, welfare

makes more substantial. A substantive equality of opportunity does

more than pronounce that all in a society are formally equally

eligible for a job or position; it attempts to ‘level the playing

field’ (Roemer 1998: 1). For example, a public education system

will ensure to a degree that all have the chance to attain the

qualifications necessary to apply for a certain job or position.

Precisely how and to what extent ‘the playing field’ is levelled,

or how high the ‘safety net’ swings, is of course a matter of

ongoing disagreement (Roemer, 1998: 2). Nevertheless, the recent

economic crisis, an aging population, and the perception of a too

‘lavish’ benefits system have been preludes to the implementation

of a “welfare cap” which may constitute either a weakening or at

the very least an alteration in the provision of welfare (Lavery,

2015).

The fourth change, in which transformation of inequality is a

decline in the degree to which modern society, with respect to

many activities, is losing previous authoritative centres and

therefore exemplary or tightly constraining patterns of conduct.

Modern societies no longer possess, despite what may be said about

increasing globalization or homogenization, a few dominant (at

least in those societies in which the electoral laws do not

45

discourage a multiplication of political parties) and/or coherent

political parties, family patterns, labour unions, gender

structures, religions, scientific disciplines, ethnic groups,

social strata, communities, cities, or corporate structures. In

each instance a process of decentering is underway (see Stehr, 2000).

For example, in most modern societies we do not find that the

traditional family continues to be the dominant family. The family

has become a “much more fluid and fragile institution” (Boltanski

and Chiapello, 2007: xl). The decentering provides malleable

structures that can be reconstructed in many ways, enhancing the

very process underway only further. The reconstruction of the

rules which govern the structural patterns in turn enable one to

employ one's "knowledge" throughout society in productive ways.

Finally, new patterns of inequality are affected by emerging

global problems such as climate change, which heighten existing

inequalities. Ulrich Beck (1986: 48), an important contributor to

the modern theories of inequality, asserts in relation to

civilizational risks that “poverty is hierarchical, smog is

democratic”. He was convinced at least in the mid-eighties that

one of the salient inequality trends in modern society was a push

toward greater equality and a softening of social differences and

boundaries across the globe. It follows that societies

46

increasingly at risk cannot be class societies. The risk to which

they are exposed cannot be comprehended as risks related to class

position.

In contrast to this claim, research on the societal consequences

of climate change indicate, for example, that tropical regions are

more likely to be impacted by drought, food shortages and

cyclones. This has been acknowledged by a recent report by the

World Bank: “the poor will be hit first and hardest. This means

that the people who are least responsible for raising the Earth's

temperature may suffer the gravest consequences from global

warming. That is fundamentally unfair”. 29 Not only are the affects

of a changing climate distributed unequally, however, but also

this unequal distribution is underpinned by the existing

inequalities that it also sharpens. Analysis of Hurricane Katrina

that made landfall in August of 2005 on the Gulf Coast of the

United States attests to the interconnection of environmental

risk, structural racism and patterns of economic and political

inequality (cf. Hartman and Squires, 2006; Sharkey 2007). Recent

research on so-called “heat death” exposes its unequal

29 See op-ed piece by World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim Ending Poverty Includes Tackling Climate Change 10 July 2013. Available at: www.worldbank.org/en/news/opinion/2013/07/10/op-ed-ending-poverty-includes-tackling-climate-change. Full report available at www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2013/06/14/000445729_20130614145941/Rendered/PDF/784240WP0Full00D0CONF0to0June19090L.pdf (accessed 16 April 2015).

47

distribution across social spaces. For example, during the 1995

heat wave in the city of Chicago (see Klinenberg, 2002; Browning,

Wallace, Feinberg and Cagney, 2006), heat wave mortality was

negatively associated with neighbourhood affluence and positively

linked to commercial decline. Environmental disasters, connected

or not to climate change, reproduce political, social and economic

inequalities.

Conclusion

Patterns of inequality are made more complex as the boundaries

between “social” and “natural” inequality become increasingly

blurred. Scientific developments in recombinant DNA, embryonic

stem cells, GM foods, genetic engineering of the human germline,

the reconstruction of the genome of the ancestor of the human

being, neurogenetics and reproductive cloning exemplify some of

the novel issues we are confronting in vigorously contested

debates. Do we need to review the validity of the Lamarckian idea

regarding the passing on of acquired (genetic) attributes in one

individual to their offspring? The result of these developments is

that new knowledge and new technical abilities as capacities to

act (Stehr und Adolf, 2015) are also perceived as a peril posed to

everyone; not merely as a threat and a burden to privacy, the

48

status quo, the course of life and the understanding of what life

is; but also as a danger to the very nature of creation (cf.

Stehr, 2003).

Are our bodies, our genes and our health all “facts” beyond the

limits of social influence and therefore the realm of natural

inequality? Or can economic power, social knowledge and governance

penetrate this apparently solid givenness in order to render what

was naturally unequal a matter of social inequality? The boundaries of

what at one time appeared to be solidly beyond the ability of all

of us to change, alter or manage are rapidly being moved. And this

ability itself, of course, is not equally distributed; some

individuals and groups in some regions of the world may be given

this choice; others may not.

Discoveries of scientific knowledge are deeply implicated in the

heated discussions over the differences and inequalities of race,

ethnicity, gender and sex (see Fuller, this volume). The

ostensible biological givenness of these categories has been

contradicted by assertions that they are actually fully socially

constructed (Lorber, 1993). Sex, for example, was once assumed to

be determined by reference to anatomy; an individual’s position in

either male or female category was decided through the visibility

of certain bodily traits. Developments in scientific research led

49

to this unreliable approach being replaced by chromosome testing,

which in turn has been revealed as inaccurate (Fausto-Sterling,

2000: 2). For Anne Fausto-Sterling (2000: 3) “labelling someone a

man or a woman is a social decision. We may use scientific

knowledge to help us make the decision, but only our beliefs about

gender – not science – can define our sex. Furthermore, our

beliefs about gender affect what kinds of knowledge scientists

produce about sex in the first place.” How might this open up new

issues of social inequality? As Fausto-Sterling also indicates,

not only does the magnitude, the moral, social and political

relevance of inequality vary, but so does the attention paid by

natural and social scientists and policy makers to specific

dimensions and regions of inequality; assumptions regarding the

naturalness or pertinence of inequality are prioritised and become

central to research, theory and policy. The nineteenth century,

for example, witnessed a scientific obsession with race and its

apparent connection with intelligence. Samuel George Morton, a

respected scientist, devoted a lifetime of research to trying to

prove the correlation between different cranial capacity and the

natural inequality of races (Gould, 1978). Today social science

analysis acknowledges the social generation of the racial

dimensions of social, political and economic inequality as well as

50

the category of race itself (Morning, 2014). As another example,

scientific evidence undermining the conceptualisation of

homosexuality as an illness, supported political protest to

transform public perceptions and, ultimately, civil rights (see

Gwartney & Schwartz, this volume).

Patterns of inequality are transforming in ways in which are

impossible to fully predict but are nevertheless significant and

demand attention from researchers and policy makers. Global trends

intersect with local contexts to produce certain patterns of

inequality in elite dominance (Duca, this volume), social

movements (Runciman, this volume) and citizenship rights and

immigration (Adam, this volume). It is unlikely that inequality

will simply be exacerbated or alleviated. Rather, the diverse

forms of social inequality will be weaved together into a new,

complex regime of inequality.

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